Sunday thoughts

For those of you with dads who are alive, go hug them, call them, whatever. And tell them to be healthy and take their cholesterol meds.

My dad was the first person to encourage me to swim competitively. I remember him telling me it was a sport I would be able to participate in for my whole life. And, as was often the case, he was right. I’m so glad I listened to him.

This weekend I swam in my first Long Course Meters swim meet since high school. It was so fun to be swimming and racing in the 50 meter outdoor pool. I swam events that I don’t usually race just for fun. I had a good laugh when I proved once again that my breaststroke is faster than my backstroke. Breaststroke is supposed to be the slowest stroke, but backstroke is my “resting stroke.”

I got some help from Greg to make this Vine “selfie” that turned out better than I’d imagined it… it makes me look like a Phelps impersonator…. watch for the “photo bomb” and remember what I mentioned above about swimming being a lifetime sport — Greg swears he didn’t notice when he was filming…

Another thing I think my dad would have loved is Twitter. He would have had so much fun on Twitter. I’m sad he died before the age of Twitter. We announced a fun partnership this week with Vizify (a Portland-based start-up). The resulting movie is below.

And, lastly, also in honor of Father’s Day. I would like to mention another John Carroll Alum (like my dad) that I miss — Tim Russert — former Meet the Press host and NBC political correspondent. Mr. Russert died five years ago. He reminded me a lot of my dad (and they both reminded me a lot of John Belushi… ). The Washington Post published a nice article remembering Tim Russert this week. Pull quote relevant to my next paragraph:

Tim’s unvarnished passion is the thing that has stuck with me over the five years since his passing. He LOVED politics — the personalities, the statistics, the strategy — and it showed. When you watched “Meet”, you knew you were watching a political junkie who relished the game and who, to his immense credit, was never overly cynical about politicians and government. He was a passionate optimist in a political world largely populated by pessimists. And he loved what he did.

I watched Meet the Press this morning for the first time in ages and was so incredibly disappointed. Disappointed in NBC, disappointed in David Gregory, disappointed in politics and the US Government, disappointed in the lazy humans that are just not interested in educating themselves about what’s going on in the world. The state of media in the US has been devolving into sound-bites and half-truths for years now. It makes me sad.

So now I’m sad because I miss my dad and sad because the world is a mess.

But I refuse to be cynical. I’m happy I can swim. I’m happy I work for a company that defends and protects the user’s voice. And I’m hopeful that all of humanity is not sheep.